Shall I give you a little familiar conversation of the members, as they smoke their post-prandial cigars in the hall, waiting for the Convention to be called to order? Every mother's son of them has a title.
Familiar Conversation of Members.
Judge.—Toombs is a great blusterer. When speaking, he seems determined to force, to drive you into agreeing with him. Howell Cobb is another blusterer, much like him, but immensely fond of good dinners. Aleck Stephens is very different. When he speaks, you feel that he desires to carry you with him only by the power of reason and argument.
Colonel.—I knew him when he used to be a mail-carrier in Georgia. He was a poor orphan boy, but a charitable society of ladies educated him. He is a very small man, with a hand no wider than my three fingers, and as transparent as any lady's who has been sick for a year. He always looked like an invalid. If you were to cut his head off, I don't believe he would bleed a pint.[4]
Major.—Do you know what frightened Abe Lincoln out of Baltimore? Somebody told him that Aleck Stephens was lying in wait for him on a street corner, with a six-pounder strapped to his back. When he heard that, he sloped. [Loud laughter from the group.]
Judge.—Well, Lincoln has been abused immensely about his flight through Baltimore; but I believe the man acted from good motives. He knew that his partisans there meant to make a demonstration when he arrived, and that they were very obnoxious to the people; he had good reason to believe that it would produce trouble, and perhaps bloodshed; so he went through, secretly, to avoid it.
New Orleans Again—Reviewing Troops.
New Orleans, April 5, 1861.
The Second Louisiana Zouaves were reviewed on Lafayette Square last evening, before leaving for Pensacola. They are boyish-looking, and handle their muskets as if a little afraid of them, but seem to be the raw material of good soldiers. They are luridly grotesque, in closely-fitting, blue-tasseled, red fez caps, blue flannel jackets and frocks, faced with red, baggy red breeches, like galvanized corn-sacks, and gutta-percha greaves about their ankles.
April 6.